Blofeld

Partner deals and opens 1♠, and right hand opponent passes. Can you construct a hand on which you would now bid 6♠? If scoring method or vulnerability would help, please feel free to adjust that.

Sometimes I think this game is too tough for me. Great situation! [incidentally, does this imply that against a LHO you think would always play small-small from (J/T)xx, you should still be going up with the ace?]

The principle of restricted choice says that it isn't. Playing the Queen picks up Kxx onside. Playing the ace picks up (Jxx / Txx) onside.

It wouldn't have crossed my mind that 4NT might be keycard if you hadn't just suggested it. Reminds me of the agreement that 4♣ is always Gerber ...

What do you think are the relative merits of 4NT and 5NT? 4NT is obviously better if you're going to leave it at the 5-level. I thought 5NT would be nicer, as I'm not sure that the opponents have finished bidding yet, and I wanted to let partner know my slam intentions immediately. I feel that 5NT is more likely than 4NT to fetch a sacrifice, which could be a good thing or a bad thing.

Chamaco, they had already doubled 2♠. I think East is just about blameless here.

My understanding is that "our par contract" means: (1) the par contract, if it is ours (2) the highest contract played by our side such that we would prefer it to the par contract, if the par contract is them making something (3) our best contract, if the par contract is them sacrificing. But that's a rather contorted definition. So perhaps my understanding is out.

I think we have to trust that partner is a good bidder here. Of course if the problem is "what do you bid opposite a pick up partner on BBO" then the answers are going to change substantially - I wouldn't be confident that 3♥ would be understood, for instance.

4♠ was my first thought with this hand, but then I started constructing a few hands for partner, and decided that 4♠ was a bit much.

Erm ... that is true. But he might also have less than six tricks. I expect to be in 3♠+1 occasionally, but I still want to pass.

I was being optimistic, so I wanted to choose between 5NT and 6♣. Both of these have some merit, and both will sometimes lead to the wrong slam. In the end I bid 5NT. I disagree with Richard about this being a bad problem. Yes, everything is a guess. But each guess will have an associated success rate, and the idea is to pick the guess with highest chance of success. If they all had almost equal chances of success, then his point would be valid. But I see no reason to believe that this is the case.

I bid 3♠, but obviously I was hoping that that was natural and invitational. If everyone agrees that this hand evaluates as an invitation with spades*, doesn't the problem just become "what's the system bid?" rather than judgement-related? *of course, this is almost certainly not the case, so ignore my point.

I pass. I don't think my ♦K is worth an awful lot, so I probably have around three tricks for partner. Do I really expect him to have seven tricks for his favourable jump to 3♠?

3♥, but I never did claim to understand matchpoints. I'll just bid my hand.

I passed, but I can see that double or 4♦ could work. However, preempts work, and a lot of the time that we want to be going somewhere partner is going to muster a double. Double and then bidding 4♦ over 4♣ should show something like this.

I suppose I double, though I'm not convinced that this is right. I considered 4NT, and then thought "no, that's a stupid bid". Which probably means that that's what I would have bid at the table before the second thought caught up with the first. :P

Do we know what system the opponents are playing? Assuming 1♣ is natural, does it show 2, 3 or 4 cards? I'm asking as a displacement activity because it possibly should affect my bid. Right now passing looks a decent possibility, with 3NT a wild alternative.

The bidding given in the topic is: 1♦ (1♠) X (2♠) ? but the bidding given in the first post is: 1♦ (1♠) X (3♠) ? Which is correct?

Yes I agree with Fluffy ... if partner can't find spade support in his hand, are we really sure that we want to play in spades?

I plumped for 3♣, but I can see that both my heart singleton and club ace could be useful in 2♠, so I'm not confident that this is the best action.

I largely agree with Hannie's guesses for Hands B & C, but I think hand A is more one-suited, and contains at least one ace; perhaps something more like: AKQJxxx xx xx xx Hand C, though, could well be something more 2-suited. Maybe 6-4 shape.

Could you explain what, say, 4x and 4S mean here?

Corollary: if the deck seems to have 50 points, trust OPPS, not pard :) Disagree strongly. For one thing, if it works, you're fielding partner's bid. Secondly, I've seen some absolutely awful results that have occurred in this sort of situation. Letting through 1NTx when it should be at least 2 off because of trusting declarer's bidding rather than partner's, for instance.

Oops. Missed a factor of two. Marceld is right, of course.

Around 0.8%, I think.